Pizza Pasta

Do you like pizza? I know - dumb question, right? My kids would eat pizza every day if I'd let them - but, unfortunately for them, they have the mean mom that makes the have a *gulp* balanced diet [insert dramatic music] so they only get to indulge maybe twice a month. When you go out for pizza, you really only eat pizza - so a carb slathered in greasy cheese & full-fat meats. At least if you go for this pasta dish you can be sure to use a chunky, veggie-filled sauce, reduced fat cheeses and whole wheat pasta. And if you serve up some good fresh steamed veggies on the side you don't have to feel as guilty about 'pizza' night! Seriously - this tastes exactly like a sausage & pepperoni pizza. Try it out!

Ingredients:


Rotini, mild Italian sausage, sliced pepperoni, jarred spaghetti sauce (again, gotta love my Sockarooni!!), garlic, shredded Mozzarella cheese (I also ended up adding maybe 1/2 cup of some shredded cheddar/jack I had in the fridge).

Step 1: Boil up your pasta according to the package directions. While that is going get the sausage crumbled into a skillet & brown it up. Drain off the fat.


When they pasta finishes up drain it & just let it sit there in the colander for a few minutes. Take the hot pot you just poured the pasta out of & get it back on the stove over medium heat. Splash a smidge of olive oil in the pan & add the minced garlic. Just stir it around for a few minues to bring out the flavor.


Now, in that same pot add the cooked meat, cooked pasta & the jar of sauce. Give it a good stir to blend it up & get everything distributed well.


Here comes one more dirty dish - last one, I promise! Get out a casserole dish - a 9x13 would work - I used my middle sized Corningware - & give it a quick spray with PAM. Pour in half of this pasta mixture, top with half the cheese. Add the rest of the pasta, top with the rest of the cheese. Top with pepperoni, sprinkle with a little more cheese, if you have it/want it.


Pop this bad boy into a 350 oven for about 30 minutes.


Wanna see inside!!? It's good stuff.....


Layers of pasta, cheese, meat & veggies! Yum, yum, yum.


Enjoy your dinner!

Pizza Pasta:

1/2 a box (8oz) Rotini pasta
1 jar (quart) Spaghetti sauce
2 cups Mozarella cheese, shredded
1/2 cup Cheddar/Jack, shredded
1/2 - whole package (8 - 16oz) ground sausage
-----*use at least 1/2 the pkg, as much as all of it, depending on your preferences
Sliced pepperoni
3 cloves garlic, minced

Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain; set aside. While pasta is cooking, brown & crumble sausage in a pan. Once cooked, drain off the fat. In the same pot the pasta boiled in, heat a drizzle of oil over medium heat; add garlic. Stir around for about 4-5 minutes. Add sausage, pasta & sauce to the pan with garlic. Stir well to combine.

Spray a casserole dish with cooking spray. Add half the pasta mixture, top with 1/2 the mozzarella cheese. Add remaining pasta, top with remaining mozzarella. Add pepperoni to the top, sprinkle with Cheddar/Jack cheese.

Bake in a 350 oven for 25-30 minutes.

Recipe Source: Aubrey @ My Recipes

Tangy/Savory Basted Chops

Kind of a long name, huh? I was trying to think of something better to call them but I'm starting to learn that naming a dish is a difficult task! I have little names that I call them but "those Worcestershire & lemon chops" just doesn't feel good enough to go public with, you know what I mean?! These are good chops. There's enough soy to play well with the Worcestershire but not so much that it over powers the dish. And then there's the subtle bit of lemon that pushes through with the brown sugar to give some great tang. So they're savory - but they're also tangy - and completely delicious!

Our ingredients:


Pork chops, ketchup, brown sugar, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, canola oil (or veg), garlic powder.

First get your chops into your baking dish & sprinkle them with garlic powder.


Now grab a bowl & mix the rest of the ingredients to make our sauce.


Pour half the sauce over the chops & spread it around to cover them.


Pop into an 350 oven & bake for about 15 minutes each side (or longer if you're using thick chops.)

Flip 'em & baste the other side with the rest of the sauce. Cook until done (160 internal temp for pork!)



That's it! Serve it up with a carb & a veg & you've got a great dinner in no time with nearly no hassle! Enjoy!

Tangy/Savory Basted Chops:

2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp canola/veg oil
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup ketchup
4 pork chops, trimmed
garlic powder

Preheat oven to 350.

Place chops into an 8x8 baking dish & sprinkle with garlic powder.

In a small bowl thoroughly blend remaining ingredients. Pour half the mixture over the chops. Bake about 15 minutes. Flip chops, baste with remaining sauce & cook another 15 minutes (you'll need to go longer with thick chops - get to an internal temp of 160).

*Optional: You can give the chops about 3 minutes per side under the broiler to help the sauce stick to the chops.

Bacon

Do you love BACON!? I do. Everything about it makes me happy. It smells amazing as it cooks, it tastes wonderful when you bite it. Top BBQ chicken with some bacon & melt some cheese down over it & your chicken is happier. Add it to your hamburger with some pepper jack cheese & your burger is better. Throw it in a spinach salad & your salad becomes more amazing. Heck, they even put bacon in chocolate these days! If all the people in the world would just enjoy simple pleasures like bacon I think this world would be a happier place. It's just that good.

Except..... the mess it splatters all over your stove top as you cook it & the hot grease it spits onto your arms, leaving you wounded!! LOL Want a solution? Do it in the OVEN! Seriously! I had never done bacon in the oven until about a year ago & now I will never, I repeat, NEVER cook it on the stove top again.

Here's how you do it:

Preheat your oven to 425. Line a sheet pan with foil. Lay the bacon on the sheet, not touching.


Pop it into the oven for 15-20 minute.
Don't flip it.
Don't burn yourself.
Don't make a mess of your stove top.
Appreciate that your bacon stayed flat instead of curling up.
Thank me that you do't have any squishy, chewey fat spots to pass off to your husband.
And enjoy the easy clean up thanks to the foil!


Use tongs to move it to a paper-towel-lined plate to soak up the grease.


Serve it up with your pancakes & applesauce & call it good!


And as long as I'm sharing tips with you... do you have a bunch of kids that you have to cut up countless pancakes for? Use a pizza cutter. It goes SO quick & smooth & even - no ripped/torn pieces of pancake for the little ones!


Enjoy your next round of bacon!

Asian BBQ Pork Chops

We're starting off with a confession. I cannot cook pork chops in the crock pot. I try. I try all the time. I have tried several different recipes and I have tried several different techniques to keep them moist, but I always fail & get dried out meat. Like the kind that sucks the moisture out of your mouth as you chew it. The kind that you have to have a tall glass of milk to help you get it down. What am I doing wrong!? I don't know... but I will say that these chops, had I baked them in the oven or a couple of hours less in the crock pot, would have been amazing. So, I'm gonna go ahead & share it anyway! If you insist on doing them in the crock pot maybe just go on low for 3 or 4 hours. Not the 6 that I did. Another tip I've heard is if you sear them in a pan on the stove (don't cook them completely, just put some brown on each side) before you throw them in the crock pot it helps retain the moisture... but I failed at that one, too! LOL

ANYWAY! How's that for instilling faith in your cooking blog lady, huh!? I'm just keeping it real. Sometimes I fail!

Let's see the fixings:


Pork chops (excuse the marks from my tongs!), brown sugar, soy sauce, ketchup, honey, pepper, garlic, cornstarch.

Start out by mixing the sugar, ketchup, soy sauce, pepper & garlic (minced up or pressed through a press). Give them a good whisk until they are combined into a good sauce.

Then toss your chops into your crock pot & pour the sauce on top. Flip them over in the sauce to get the coated well.


Now give a good squeeze of honey over the top of each chop, using some tongs to help get the bottom chops.


Then just cover & cook on low for [insert appropriate time here.] I did 4 hours and then moved on to the last step & cooked an additional 2 hours for a total of 6 hours on low for 4 chops. It was too long!

The last step? Take the chops out & set aside. Add in a couple tablespoons of cornstarch & whisk it into the sauce to make it into a thicker glaze-like sauce, rather than a thin, runny marinade. Add the chops back in & go for another 2 hours. I'm thinking the appropriate times should have maybe been 2 hours/2 hours.


And that's it! We served it up with brown rice & steamed broccoli. The flavor was WONDERFUL! Like BBQ meets Asian cuisine. I definitely recommend you try it out... just don't overcook your meat like I ALWAYS seem to do! LOL A bonus of crock pot cooking is that your whole house will smell great as you wait for this to finish up!


And a peek inside... all good and saucy on the outside, but still nice & bright white inside!

Asian BBQ Pork Chops:

6 pork chops
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup soy sauce
4 cloves of garlic, minced
pepper to taste
1/2 cup honey
2 TBSP cornstarch

Place pork chops into crock pot. In a separate bowl, combine sugar, ketchup, soy sauce, garlic & pepper. Whisk until combined. Pour over the chops & use tongs to flip the chops around to ensure they are all coated. Squirt honey generously over each chops - again using tongs to reach the bottom ones.

Cook on low for 2 (?) hours. Remove chops & set aside. Add cornstarch to sauce in the crock pot. Whisk to combine. Add chops back into sauce and cook on low an additional 2 hours. Serve hot with extra sauce over the top.

Slow Cooker

Lemonade Pork Chops

I love pork chops. It's a good, lean, non-gristley meat that cooks easy & the kids love it. Win-win-win in this house. But! Unlike it's white-meat cousin, chicken, there seems to be a very short list of things people do with a pork chop. Leave it whole & then just grill it. Or bake it. Or coat it in breading & cook it. This is a great option for chop lovers looking for a new spin on this chunk of meat.

Here are our ingredients:

Frozen lemonade concentrate (thawed), soy sauce, garlic powder, season salt and, of course, chops!


Start out THE NIGHT BEFORE by putting the chops in a dish & poking them full of holes so they'll soak up the marinade you're about to make.


Now mix up the soy sauce, lemonade & seasonings in a bowl. Whisk them together & then pour it over the chops.


Cover it with some plastic wrap & throw them in the fridge over night. Flip them over in the morning.

Normally, I would cook these under the broiler but in the 10 minutes I was getting the baby down for his nap this afternoon my hubby lent our broiler pan to our neighbor! So we tried these out on our grill pan. Worked just as well!

It was about 6 minutes per side. I don't think I could recommend doing these in a flat-bottom pan - I would worry about the sugar in the lemonade burning the whole bottom of the chop before the chop ever cooked. So either a grill pan or a broiler pan set about 4 inches from the heat, for 5-7 minutes per side.

Yum, yum, YUM!!


How easy was that!!!???

Lemonade Pork Chops:

1/2 a can of frozen lemonade concentrate (6 ounces)
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 tsp season salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
4 pork chops

Place chops in a shallow dish & poke several times with a fork. In a small bowl, stir together remaining ingredients.

Pour mixture over chops, cover and place in fridge overnight. Turn chops over in the marinade in the morning.

Preheat broiler. Remove chops from marinade & place on a broiling pan. Broil about 4 inches from heat source for 5-7 minutes per side.

Honey Pecan Pork Chops

I thought we'd try out a new recipe tonight - Honey Pecan Pork Chops. Sounds yummy, right? They were pretty good. I don't know that I'd call them the greatest chops I've ever eaten, but definitely a good alternative to the savory chops we usually have around here! Ready? Let's cook.

Let's see what we're working with:

Pork chops, honey, pecans, onion, butter, flour, salt & pepper.

Start out by dicing up the onion - or rather, HALF of the onion! Melt half a stick of butter - 1/4 cup - in a skillet over med-high (closer to med, though). Add the onions & cook them for a few minutes.


While those are cooking mix about 1/2 cup of flour with some salt & pepper - however much you like.

Dredge the chops in the flour & add to the skillet with the onions/butter.


Now just cook them til they're done! Flip once or twice. The internal temp of pork should come up to 160 degrees, but remember that it'll cook a little once you take them out of the pan. I took them out at 150 & they were good.


.... and now is the segment in this dinner preparation where I have no pictures. Jack came crawling into the kitchen, tired of being ignored, so I had to finish with him on my hip. Once the chops are done, put them on a warm plate & set aside. Add 1/4 cup of honey & 1/4 cup of chopped pecans to the pan - pan drippings & all. At this time, I also must throw out a disclaimer... I was holding Jack on my hip as I was squeezing the honey into my measuring cup when Jack decided to throw out those lightening quick snatcher claws & sink them palm-deep into the honey. So I had a quick intermission as I tried feverishly to clean it up... and my onions burned. Tasted OK - but makes for ugly pictures. Sorry. Anyway - just stir the honey & pecans around the pan for a minute or two to warm it all up & then pour it down over the top of your chops. MMmmmm.... ENJOY!

(please ignore the ugly black onions!!)

Honey Pecan Pork Chops

4 boneless chops
1/2 onion, diced
1/3 cup flour
salt & pepper to taste
4 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup chopped pecans

In a large skillet, melt butter over med-high heat. Add onions & saute for a few minutes. Add chops - brown both sides & cooking until done. Transfer to a warm plate.

In a shallow dish, mix together flour, salt & pepper. Dredge chops through the mixture.

Mix honey and pecans into the pan drippings. Heat through, stirring constantly. Pour over chops & serve!

"Wet Burritos" (Salsa Verde Pork)

Hubby made dinner tonight. (It's funny how such a simple sentence can put such a big smile on my face!! LOL) As most of you know, Hubby is a firefighter & firefighters know how to cook! This is a dinner he makes for the guys at the station & he wanted to try it out on the family tonight. Good stuff! Even baby Jack had a good share of the meat! The guys at the station call these Wet Burritos - I'm not sure if I can get on board with such an unappealing-sounding name, so in this house I think it'll be Salsa Verde Pork!

Get out your crock pots again!!


Get a pork shoulder/butt.... yes, I know. I just had that blurb about not liking to cook with the 'yucky' stuff but Hubby was the hands that had to touch/see this stuff - I just got to see/eat the finished (delicious) product! And, because Hubby cooked this, you'll notice no crock pot liner *grumble grumble*. Just makes for more work at clean up. Oh well.

Anyway - back on topic!! Get a pork shoulder/butt, 2 cans of black beans (drained & rinsed), a jar of salsa verde (hubby says Herdez is the best - we used Pace tonight & it was fine) and a can of green enchilada sauce (the smaller size). Throw it ll in the crock pot together & set on high for about 7-8 hours (until it pulls apart easily). Then pull it out & shred it with two forks. While you have the meat out of the pot, use a spoon to skim the grease/oil/fat (whatever you call it!) off the top. Then throw it all back into the crock & give it a good stir. Let it go for another 2 hours, or so.


Serve this with a slotted spoon. There is a lot of liquid in there (thus the name Wet Burritos!) and you don't want your tortillas to get *too* soggy. Put a heap of meat on a tortilla & top with you favorite toppings - cheese, onions, cilantro, sour cream.... whatever you think sounds good!


Roll it up & enjoy!!

Slow Cooker

Pulled Pork

Crock pots. Who doesn't love a crock pot!? We had a baseball game tonight so I threw dinner in about 10:00 this morning & knew we'd be all set with a nice, hot, ready-to-go meal just before our game! And it's one my kids love... even cheer for some nights - Pulled Pork Sandwiches.

********************************************

Step 1: Get a chunk of pork! Tonight I used a small pork roast. I've also used tenderloin. Haven't used chops yet, but it's all the same meat so I'm sure they'd work. But I'm a meat snob. I hate gristle, the sinew, veiney stuff... If you're less of a snob - which I'm confident most normal people are, you could easily use a shoulder or butt to save some money. This will be in the crock pot long enough to soften all the nitty-gritty connective tissue that make my wussy spine shiver.

Throw it in the crock pot & cover with ..... *drumroll* ..... Root Beer! Put on the lid & cook on low for about 7-8 hours. Don't worry if you think it smells not-awesome as it simmers in the soda. The first time I made it I though 'What have I done!?' But just trust the process! I promise you'll like it!

Pull it out & shred it with 2 forks. Shred it good so it'll soak up all the sauce it's about to bathe it!

Discard root beer & return meat to the crock pot & cover with a full bottle of BBQ Sauce (yes, I use crock pot liners! Try them - you'll fall in love!) We like Sweet Baby Ray's Brown Sugar & Hickory for this recipe. Let it go on low for another hour, stir it a time or two.

Toast up some buns - check out these adorable mini buns by Sara Lee! Perfect kid-sized sandwiches! Put a heap of meat on each bun & inhale these babies! Well - I guess you should take responsible bites - but really, you won't want to. These bad boys are DELICIOUS!!!!

Oh - and an added bonus!? My kids know that rather than the usual milk we serve with every other dinner, they get to finish off the 2-liter of root beer with this meal!

Pulled Pork:

Small pork roast/loin/a few chops

1-litre Root Beer

1 bottle BBQ Sauce

Place pork in slow cooker & cover with root beer. Cook on low for 7-8 hours.

Remove from crock pot & root beer. Shred pork with 2 forks, return to crock pot & cover with BBQ sauce. Stir & cook on low 1 more hour.

Serve on toasted buns.